


Bring Your Children to Work Day

by Glisseo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Professor Harry Potter, Teacher!Harry AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 12:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11600934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glisseo/pseuds/Glisseo
Summary: “Daddy, what are we doing?” asked Al, blinking up at him.In a split second, Harry made the decision.“You’re all coming to work with me today,” he said, hoping – as cheers rent the air - that he wouldn’t very much regret it.





	Bring Your Children to Work Day

This, thought Harry, was really, _really_ not a good idea.   
  
It was a positively stupid idea, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, but the fact of the matter was that he was due to teach his first lesson in ten minutes and Ginny was in Brazil and a series of panicked Floo calls to various members of her family once he’d remembered his children’s school was closed had yielded no results.   
  
Hogsmeade Primary for Young Witches and Wizards was an excellent school, taking children from nursery to age eleven, but their closure for a training day had sent them momentarily plummeting in Harry’s estimations. He should have already been in his classroom, preparing for the day’s lessons, but instead he was standing in his hallway with his children, staring at them and wondering if he had the nerve to do what he’d just thought of doing.   
  
_C’mon, mate, you’ve done worse than this,_ said a voice in his head that sounded very much like Ron’s.   
  
Well, he didn’t really have much of a choice …  
  
“Daddy, what are we doing?” asked Al, blinking up at him.  
  
In a split second, Harry made the decision.  
  
“You’re all coming to work with me today,” he said, hoping – as cheers rent the air - that he wouldn’t very much regret it.  
  
Somehow, he managed to gather together his things and offspring in a matter of minutes, and bundled them all out of the door, along the lane and towards Hogwarts. The children squealed with glee as they climbed the castle steps – they’d visited the grounds before, but hardly seen the school itself – but Harry’s heart was thumping.   
  
He could tell from the rumble of voices beyond the Entrance Hall that breakfast was still ongoing, giving him time to herd his rabble up the marble staircase unseen. It occurred to him fleetingly that he ought to run this by the Headmistress, but there was little time for that, and besides, he was worried she might (reasonably) find a lot of problems with this arrangement.   
  
They reached his classroom. Harry drew his wand and shifted his desk forwards a few paces, conjured a heap of cushions and mats to cover the floor behind it, and turned back to his children, who were regarding their surroundings with great interest.   
  
“Now, I need you to listen carefully,” he said.  
  
James, seven, Al, five and Lily, three, looked at him solemnly. It was only then that Harry noticed his daughter had dressed herself in a Holyhead Harpies t-shirt (much too large) and – although it was April - a pair of trousers patterned with reindeer.    
  
“I have to teach,” he told them. “So I need you three to be _very, very_ good, OK? I’ve brought lots of things to play with –” he jabbed his wand at his bag, which opened to let the random assortment of toys and colouring books he’d grabbed from the house fly out – “but you’ll need to be quiet so the children here can do their work. All right?”  
  
“Can’t we play Quidditch?” asked James, frowning.   
  
“Maybe later, but not now, no.”  
  
“We go see Haggid?” Lily piped up.   
  
“He’s teaching as well, sweetheart, we’ll see him in a bit.” Harry glanced at Al, who hadn’t said anything. “Will you be OK?”  
  
“Yes, I think so,” said Al, slowly. “I’ll just listen, if that’s all right.”  
  
To Harry’s relief, they all settled themselves down: James picked up his Quidditch figurines and started prodding them around, Lily lay on her stomach with a colouring book and Al, resting his chin on Harry’s desk, watched his father sort his lesson plan out with curious green eyes.   
  
The bell went and from several floors below came the thundering of feet as students emptied the Great Hall and thronged towards their classrooms. Harry’s first lesson was with the sixth years, who were, generally, a nice lot. He crossed his fingers as they came in and took their seats, hoping vehemently that his guests wouldn’t cause any problems. You couldn’t even see them from where the class were sitting – there was no reason for concern, really.   
  
“Good morning!” he said brightly, perching on the edge of his desk and reaching for the register. He got to the last few names before a hand in the front row shot up.   
  
“Er, sir?”  
  
“Mmhm?” said Harry, who was still occupied with the register. “Where’s Wilson?”  
  
“Hospital wing, sir,” said someone else. “Accidentally Transfigured his – well, it’s not pretty.”  
  
Harry raised his eyebrows and put an ‘A’ by Wilson’s name. “Say no more.”  
  
“ _Sir_ ,” said Samantha, her hand still up.   
  
“Yep?”  
  
“Is that your son?”  
  
Harry looked around. Albus had drifted out from behind the desk and was hovering beside it, staring at the class with almost as much interest as they were staring at him.   
  
“Him?” said Harry. “No. ‘Course not. Never seen him before in my life.”  
  
For several reasons, but largely Al’s striking resemblance to his father, he sensed that the class did not believe him.   
  
“Oh all right then, yes, this is my son, but –”  
  
More hands went up.   
  
“Why have you got your son here?”  
  
“What’s his name?”  
  
“Does he talk?”  
  
“No,” said Al. The class reacted as if he was a puppy who had just performed a trick, clutching each other and squealing.   
  
“How old is he?”  
  
“How come he’s here?”  
  
“What’s the point of putting your hands up if you just shout out anyway?” said Harry, crossly. “This is Al. He is five and yes, he can talk, but I have warned him about stranger danger and frankly they don’t come stranger than you lot. He’s here because his school is closed and there was no one else to look after him. And I, er, didn’t have chance to run it by the Headmistress so if you _wouldn’t_ go telling everybody, that would be fantastic …” _And what are the chances of that?_ he thought dispiritedly, as his students burst into excited chatter. Al, tired of the staring, disappeared behind the desk again.  
  
“RIGHT!” he bellowed, clapping his hands. “Can we get on with the lesson … _please?”_  
  
They did, for a good fifteen minutes or so. Harry was chalking up a diagram of wand movements on the board when he became aware, out of the corner of his eye, of his students’ attention moving elsewhere.   
  
Samantha put her hand up again.   
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Is that your other son?”  
  
Harry turned around. James was at his side, holding out one of his Quidditch players.   
  
“Their arm’s broken,” he explained.   
  
Reflecting that he was a much more capable Defence professor than some when it came to fixing broken arms, Harry touched his wand to the figurine’s small arm and mended it.   
  
“Thank you,” said James. He glanced around at the class. “Why are they all staring at me?”  
  
“They’re very rude,” said Harry. “All right, yes, this is my other son, James. He is seven. He is here for the same reasons as the other one. Let us now return to our work, please.”

Only ten minutes passed before the next interruption. This time, Harry felt a hand tugging at his robes, and looked down to see Lily, gazing up at him anxiously.   
  
“Sir?”  
  
“Yes, Samantha,” he managed through clenched teeth, “that _is_ my daughter.”  
  
A chorus of _awww_ s met his ears, but then they hadn’t seen Lily picking her nose.   
  
“What is it, Lilypad?” he asked her.   
  
“Need toilet.”  
  
“Oh.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Errrr … do you _really_ , really desperately?” he checked, noting with disquiet that her legs were crossed.   
  
She nodded. “Need toilet _now_.”  
  
“I’ll take her, sir,” called one of the girls, who he vaguely remembered as having several younger siblings.  
  
“Would you? Really?”  
  
She got up and held out a hand to Lily. “Come on, sweetheart, shall we go and find the toilet?”  
  
Lily went with her quite happily, though Harry couldn’t quite relax until they had both returned. After that, there was little left of the lesson, and as the bell rang, he wondered at the fact that all four of them had only survived the _first_ hour.   
  
_How many more to go?_  
  
Fortunately (thank Merlin, bless the gods fortunately) the next hour was a free period for him. Generally used for planning and marking, though he had no such illusions about this one. He hustled his brood up to his office and spent the hour on the floor pretending to be a dragon.   
  
The bell rang again, this time for break, and several minutes later there was a knock at the door. Stiffening (how likely was it that his sixth years hadn’t spilled the beans?) he got to his feet - something that was getting more difficult as the years went by – and went to answer it.   
  
A gangly thirteen-year old - with floppy hair in a peculiar shade of blue, robes fastened wrong and trailing shoe laces – grinned at him.   
  
“Rumour has it you’ve got some new classroom assistants,” said Teddy, cheekily.   
  
Before Harry could say anything – like a few choice swear words – he was knocked out of the way by his shrieking children, who fell upon Teddy like lions on a gazelle.   
  
“Aaaagh! Save me, they’re – aAAgh – ATTACKING me –”  
  
“They do that,” said Harry, as Teddy somehow managed to get the upper hand and, with a great yell, began tickling the children mercilessly.   
  
“I AM THE TICKLE MONSTER!” he roared, and with a moment’s concentration, his hair turned bright green.   
  
“Noooooooooo!” squealed the children, attempting to escape in all directions.   
  
“How did you find out?” Harry asked his godson, raising his voice over the din. “Was it one of the sixth years?”  
  
Teddy, holding a shrieking Lily upside down and tickling her tummy, shrugged. “Might have been. I heard it from a few people, actually …”  
  
Harry exhaled. “Great. I told them I _hadn’t_ cleared it with Professor McGonagall …”  
  
“They weren’t telling everyone,” Teddy assured him. “They thought I’d know already. I told them I had no idea, as you don’t share things with me, your poor young godson …”  
  
“Heartbreaking,” Harry agreed.   
  
“Isn’t it? Look, as it happens, I’ve got next lesson off. Why don’t I look after the little monsters?”  
  
“You’ve got next lesson off,” said Harry, raising his eyebrows.  
  
Teddy released his hold on the children and let them collapse, giggling, in a heap on the carpet. He turned to face Harry with an expression of pure innocence. “Yep.”  
  
“Which lesson?”  
  
“Potions.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Slight hesitation. “What, don’t you believe me?”   
  
“No,” said Harry. “I think you want to skive Potions, for some reason, to look after my little monsters.”  
  
“And why would I –”  
  
“All right – you won’t mind if I double check this with Professor Bloom, then,” Harry said breezily, moving towards the door. Teddy’s eyes widened.   
  
“Erm …”  
  
Harry relented.   
  
“Look, as you’d be helping me out, I’m willing – _just this once_ – to let you skive.” _More trouble, if McGonagall finds out, but what the hell … in for a Knut, in for a Galleon._ He raised a stern finger. “But there are conditions, all right?”  
  
“Yes, Professor,” said Teddy, with an eye-roll that reminded Harry suddenly of Tonks.   
  
“First – you’re not to leave this room. If you do – if any of them need the toilet – use this, OK? You should all fit under it.” Recognising that this was by no means a sensible decision, Harry reached into a desk drawer and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak. He chucked the silvery bundle at Teddy, whose eyes went very round again.   
  
“Right. OK. Cool.”  
  
“Second …” Harry thought. “Well, just – keep them alive, all right?”  
  
“I can manage that.”  
  
“Don’t be overconfident. I just barely manage it.” The bell rang, signaling the end of break, and Harry and Teddy exchanged looks that betrayed the trepidation they were both feeling.   
  
Harry usually prided himself on the enthusiasm and passion he put into his lessons, but throughout the hour with a class of fourth-years (fortunately a theory lesson) he was aware that his mind was only half on what he was teaching. The other half of it was back in his office, where his thirteen ( _thirteen!)_ year old godson was attempting to control his very willful children.   
  
For once, when lunchtime came, he was out of the door before his students. He raced up the stairs, along the corridor, tearing open the door of his office -   
  
“Harry!” cried Teddy, in a voice filled with so much panic that Harry nearly collapsed there on the spot.   
  
“What? What’s happened?” he asked urgently, but he didn’t need to look far to find out the immediate problem. Teddy was there, but James, Al and Lily were not.   
  
“Where are they?!”  
  
“I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Harry! I only turned around for a second – they’d knocked all your stuff off the desk – and when I turned back, they – they must have got your Cloak and the door was open –”  
  
“They’ve got the Cloak?”

 

Teddy nodded, looking close to tears.   
  
“Hey, Ted, it’s not your fault,” said Harry quickly, putting an arm around his godson’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have left you with the three of them, that wasn’t fair. And it could have happened to _anyone._ Do you hear me? I don’t blame you. At _all_.”  
  
“But we need to find them …”  
  
“No, _I_ need to find them. You’re going to go and have lunch, and not worry about this. OK?”  
  
“But –”  
  
“Nope. Go on, go. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve got them.”  
  
He shooed a reluctant Teddy off in the direction of the Great Hall, then, glancing around the corridor, pulled out his wand.   
  
“ _Homenum revelio.”  
  
_ Nothing. He let out a breath, stuck his wand back in his pocket and began the hunt.   
  
Half an hour later he was sweating heavily and worrying more than he wanted to admit to himself. Losing his children – with an _Invisibility Cloak –_ in a castle with numerous floors, hundreds of staircases, hidden passages and disappearing rooms, not to mention, at close quarters, a lake and a forest full of creatures was – well, it had to be up there with the stupidest things he’d ever done.   
_This bloody castle_ , he thought in irritation. _There must be an easier way to -_  
  
He stopped dead at the top of the stairs.   
  
_The Map!  
  
_ It was tucked away in a drawer somewhere at home, but perhaps … He drew his wand and said, hoping with all his might that it would work, _“Accio Marauder’s Map!”  
  
_ He dashed down the marble staircase to the Entrance Hall and out of the front doors. Moments later, he saw an object zooming through the air towards him, reaching his outstretched hand in seconds.   
“ _I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”_  
  
The inky lines spread across the parchment achingly slowly. At last, they had formed the map of the school, with all the tiny names, most of them sequestered in the Great Hall … He scanned these fervently, but there were no Potters among them, so his gaze moved, sweeping across the other floors …   
  
_There!_ There they were! _James Potter. Albus Potter. Lily Potter._ And there was another name, too. As it sunk in, Harry felt slightly sick.   
  
_Minerva McGonagall.  
  
_ *  
Harry’s heart was thudding loudly in his chest as he gave the password to the stone gargoyle and climbed the spiral steps up to the Headmistress’s office. His hand shook as he knocked.   
  
“Enter!”  
  
Professor McGonagall (he still found it difficult to think of her as _Minerva_ ) was not sitting behind her desk. She was, to Harry’s great surprise, kneeling on the floor with James, Al and Lily, who were gazing up at her with rapt interest.   
  
At Harry’s entrance, she rose stiffly to her feet and took her usual seat behind the desk. Harry’s children ran to him, and he made sure he had a relatively tight hold on them as he began his apology.   
  
“Professor, I’m incredibly sorry –”  
  
McGonagall raised a hand.   
  
“I assume you forgot to let me know that your children would be joining us today,” she said briskly. “A shame, as arrangements could have been made for them. But we shan’t dwell on it.”  
  
Harry stared.   
  
“You’re … not … angry?”  
  
She smiled, first at him, and then at the children, and he detected a significant fondness in her eyes as she did. “No, Harry. I rather enjoyed their company. They are a credit to you.”  
  
“Oh,” said Harry, stunned. “Er … thanks.”  
  
“She was telling us stories about you,” said James. “How come you weren’t expelled?”  
  
“I didn’t do anything that bad,” Harry protested, as McGonagall chuckled.   
  
“And you always said Professor McGonagall was scary …”  
  
_Oh, great. Shut up, James!_ “I’m sure I didn’t say … exactly that …”  
  
“Do you think I’m scary?” McGonagall asked the three children, sounding very amused.   
  
“No!” they chorused. She looked at Harry, and – he could have sworn – winked, as she picked up the tartan biscuit tin on her desk.  
  
“Have a biscuit, Potters.”


End file.
